


Zelda's Promise

by TheThirteenthHour



Series: Memorable: A Collection of Short Zelink Works [4]
Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Archery, F/M, Forehead Touching, Gen, Scars, Soulmates, and Zelda is sick of it and asks him to teach her how to use a bow and arrow, basically Link is too reckless, caring for wounds, implied by the triforce, tagged / and & because you can read it either way, this princess has to protect her knight too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-06
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-11-25 16:40:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20915240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheThirteenthHour/pseuds/TheThirteenthHour
Summary: If there is anything Zelda has learned while watching over Link on his journey, it’s how much more reckless he’s become. His duty is to protect her, and she knows painfully well that he’ll do so at the cost of his own life.He’d suffer through death and revival for her sake—so she will be his protector as well.





	Zelda's Promise

The fire cracks like a whip when Zelda turns her glare on Link. She almost misses his flinch. His arm gives him away, lowering the Sheikah slate just so—a moment of hesitation that indicates her word will be final. He’s zoomed in to the location of Rito Village, seemingly a stone’s throw away from their rest stop, the lodge just outside the flight range.

She’s certain Revali would laugh at his weak attempt to dissuade her.

“We’re not going anywhere until that’s taken care of,” she says, glaring at the slash in his side as if she could will it to disappear with anger alone. Nothing reawakens; the back of her right hand remains bare, and the potential to magically heal him remains a dream. She huffs and shrugs off the tunic he lent her, warm and thick with feathers, purchased a stone’s throw away when he freed Revali and Vah Medoh.

Link has been wearing the doublet her father gave him, now torn through by the blade of a persistent and lucky moblin. He winces as he tries to slip it off, and she frowns. If they had been a pace away, if she could have run just a bit faster, he’d be fine.

“Here,” she whispers, and helps him. She can mend the doublet with enough time and material. But the shirt he wears under it might be too thin and bloodied to salvage. “Does it hurt less now?”

He nods, but the discomfort is evident in his brow.

“Link.”

His gaze slides to her with the thickest amount of sarcasm and disbelief she’s seen on him yet, to the point that she can’t stop the snort that escapes her.

“The sass is unnecessary.”

His expression lightens.

She goes through their supplies once more. A few spicy elixirs with healing properties, bandages, clean rags, and the salve she whipped up, all of which she packed herself before they left for Rito Village—because Hylia knows Link can’t be trusted to keep himself in a better condition than just _alive_ without help.

She grabs some bandages and rags, opens the salve, and thanks Mipha for caring for him.

“We need to get that properly wrapped up,” she says.

He drops onto one of the wooden stools and sighs so heavily that he sounds like the octorocks she once saw on Death Mountain.

“Don’t be like that.”

She catches his eye, and he dramatically lolls his head back.

She wonders often if it’s the amnesia or his lonesome journey across Hyrule that makes him unrecognizable to her at times. She asks quietly, “Is the cold getting to you?”

He smiles. It isn’t an answer.

She sets everything she needs on the desk and gestures for him to lift his shirt. He wouldn’t let her inspect the wound earlier, once they were out of harm’s way. He chose to rub the salve on himself, certainly in a vain attempt to prevent her from worrying. Between that and the elixirs, the wound has already scabbed over and should heal without issue.

Instead, his scars command her attention.

Only half his torso is bared, but there are too many scars for her to count on both hands. Most are small—cuts that she imagines came from claws, daggers, other moblins that were persistent enough to reach him with their swords, and surely unlucky enough to meet his. But a few are large, pale, intimidating reminders that Link is no stranger to death.

She lacks most of the details of Link’s journey, having watched over him through a fog, but some events struck her clearly. She remembers the lynel that speared him through his stomach, and the agony that followed.

She grabs a rag, whispers, “I’ll get some snow to clean that,” and hurries outside.

The cold is satisfyingly unforgiving without Link’s tunic. He’s been just as stubborn as she is right now, running through frigid mountains without the proper equipment or supplies simply because he knew he wouldn’t die permanently. He had Mipha’s protection, and fairies were replenishable. His own life was expendable so long as he could be revived.

She wonders if her decision to place him in the Shrine of Resurrection contributed to his lack of self-preservation. As if she had any other choice.

Her hands are numb when she comes back inside, snow already melting in her furious grip. She slams the door shut, crouches beside him scowling, and pays no mind to his flinches against the icy rag as she cleans his wound. He’s suffered through worse, and deliberately so. The Hero of Hyrule can deal with a localized chill.

He grumbles like a child as she finishes up. She only spares him a glance before she applies the salve. He’s not pouting as much as she expects him to be—frowning more, really—but he’s still pouting.

He shouldn’t be. They’ve done this before, atop Death Mountain—with much shallower wounds, with her pride more intact, and with stoicism on his part.

She lifts the rest of his shirt for him to hold and wraps the bandages around his abdomen. “You’re still as reckless as ever…”

He says nothing.

“Worse, even,” she scoffs. “You have Mipha watching over you and you know where to find fairies, so you have a near limitless supply of—of—” She can’t think of the word. She huffs. Her throat is tight. “It’s as if you’ve died so many times it makes no difference to you so you just—you run around single-mindedly, waving that sword, as if what happens to you doesn’t matter so long as you come out of it alive and I—” Her voice wavers.

She takes a breath. Her eyes sting, and her words are getting away from her. She secures the bandage around him and sits back on her heels. She refuses to look him in the eye, both too proud and too ashamed.

His only response is to lower his shirt, but she feels his gaze on her, piercing and far too aware for the haze of amnesia that lingers around him.

She folds her hands in her lap, and doesn’t look at him. “I have watched you die on your journey more times than I care to count, Link,” she whispers. “I don’t wish to witness that in person again…”

She only looks up because he reaches for her, but he pulls his hand back before she meets his gaze.

It continues to surprise her how easily her guilt surfaces in the face of such small gestures, in the barest reminders that he is not the same man he used to be.

He bows his head and softly says, “I’m sorry…”

She could reach for his hand. But she doesn’t have the right to. She could say there is no need for him to apologize, but he, of all people, can call her on her hypocrisy without a single word.

She steadies her breath and straightens her posture. “I understand that as… my knight… your responsibility is to protect me. But I feel that looking out for yourself falls under that as well—for my sake, if you’re not willing to do so for your own.”

He nods slowly, unwilling to look at her. “I didn’t mean to upset you…” She barely hears him over the fire.

She wonders if one hundred years ago he would have said as much, if he would have looked and sounded so small and so unlike the knight her father assigned to her.

She wants to comfort him, to feel him, to soothe the ache in her soul. But his gaze snaps up when she touches his knee, and they both freeze.

Even aglow with firelight, his eyes are a piercing, comforting shade of blue.

Slowly, she tucks a lock of his hair behind his ear. “I know,” she whispers. “It’s okay. I just… couldn’t bear to lose you again…”

He’s so much more expressive and open than he used to be. But this—the way his eyes flit back and forth staring into her own, the wrinkle in his brow, his frown— This feels like he’s laid himself bare in front of her, and calls to mind all the nights he spent on his lonesome journey crying himself to sleep, full of doubt and fear and a guilt he couldn’t place without his memories.

She cups his cheek and brushes her thumb over his skin, and she prays he never has to feel that way again. “Link…”

He leans into her touch and places his hand over hers, and all at once, she calms. She could never accept his forgiveness, as much as he believes there is nothing to forgive. But she easily, gratefully accepts this.

She gently pulls him forward to rest her forehead against his. “I will do everything possible to protect you, too.”

He squeezes her hand, and she knows he smiles.

They stay until the fire dies, enjoying the rest and a warm lunch, and set out to Rito Village once more.

The wind howls through the pass leading toward the flight range, drawing her eye to the snowy, untrodden road she stood on one hundred years ago. She wonders if there are any Rito training right now, expertly riding the wind and thoroughly incapable of matching Revali’s skill.

His arrogance was never misplaced. Not even in the face of Ganon’s wrath.

There are three weapons that Link carries with him at all times: the Master Sword, inseparable from Hyrule’s timeless hero; the Hylian shield he rightfully claimed from the castle; and her aiding gift, the bow of light. She isn’t sure why the bow came to be in her possession. Just that it is another gift from the goddesses come far too late.

She recognizes the bow, but in much the same way as Epona, it looks incorrect.

“Link?”

He raises his brow. The expression is inquisitive, but with the feathers in his hair and the wind washing over him, she’s reminded of Revali. Link is the only one in all of Hyrule who can possibly compare.

“Would it… be possible for you to teach me how to use the bow I gave you?”

His eyes widen, and his steps slow.

She almost laughs. “Is it that surprising that I might want to learn? I just thought… If I am meant to be your protector as well,” and she lifts her head, to spite the uncertainty that crosses his expression. This must not have been what he had in mind when he held her hand. “I think it would be a good skill to learn. And…”

She carefully removes the bow from its sling and holds it up to the sun. It’s metallic, silver and golden, and more regal than she remembers. She pulls back the string, and Link starts, even before light takes the shape of an arrow between her fingers.

Link should have to nock an arrow of his own, not pull one from thin air.

She slowly releases the string, and the arrow dissipates. “Tell me… When you received the Master Sword—one hundred years ago, or when you reclaimed it from the Deku Tree—did you… _feel_ as though it was yours? As if you had just lost it for most of your life?”

He watches her carefully, quietly stunned.

“This bow… isn’t _mine_. Or, it’s mostly yours? I think? I— It’s difficult. But I think you understand.”

He nods.

“Right. So then… could you show me?” She smiles. “I suppose there’s no better place to learn archery than in Rito Village.”

He laughs abruptly, surely thinking what she is; the Rito may be skilled archers, but the flight range is no place for a Hylian to learn. He gestures for her Sheikah slate and points out a location to the west of Rito Village instead. Warbler’s Nest.

“You’ll teach me there?”

He smiles.

“Excellent,” she says, handing the bow back to him.

She hesitates when he takes it, and he notices. But she shakes her head. If anything, it belongs to the goddesses and to time, not to her.

He fixes her with a stubborn look, urging her to explain. He holds the bow like he’s considering returning it to her despite the fact that it’s useless with her.

It’s best in his hands. She walks ahead and smiles. “Shall we?”

* * *

Link purchases a few targets in Rito Village and sets them up beyond the stones and shrine of Warbler’s Nest. There are only three of them in a line, set at a distance that she didn’t expect to be intimidating from behind a nocked arrow.

She tightens her grip on her new bow, a wooden one wrapped in colorful ribbons, as is typical for the Rito.

“You’re tense,” Link says softly, amusement in his breath. He gently pulls back the fingers of her bow hand, standing close enough to warm her just so against Hebra’s chill. She relaxes her hand as she’s told, but the tension only moves up her arm.

“Keep your shoulder down,” he says, nudging her into place. “And your elbow rotated outward.”

It takes more of her attention than she would like to wonder at the mix of nervousness and confidence that roils in her chest. Her stance, the feel of the bow in her hand, the height of her elbow as she draws the string back, the knowledge—like muscle memory—that she’s placed her fingers improperly even before the arrow falls out of place— It’s as if she’s done this before and simply forgot.

She corrects herself and draws the string again. Link lowers her bow arm, reminds her to keep her head straight, and gives her the okay to fire.

It isn’t a far distance, but the arrow sails straight into the center of her target, and she wonders with muted pride if she’s fired alongside him before. Oceans and shadows cross her mind, far deeper than any she’s witnessed her whole life.

The not-memory nags at her, arrow after arrow, each one hitting its mark so cleanly that Link can’t hide his surprise. She doesn’t ask until she retrieves them. “Have we done this before? Fired together. It feels familiar…”

His expression is uncertain, and a painful reminder of his amnesia.

“N-not one hundred years ago,” she says, as if it would help. “But… similar to m—the… bow I gave you, or the Master Sword.”

He frowns pensively, and retrieves the bow from his back. He felt it would be best to teach her with a normal bow, one that she could use to learn how to nock an arrow—one that wouldn’t potentially blind her while using it. But he offers the bow of light to her now, gold and silver glinting in the sun. “Maybe it would feel familiar too,” he explains.

She takes it and readies herself. Her feet in line with the target and shoulders’ distance apart, arms positioned as they should be. She pulls the string back and keeps her elbow high and her head straight. Light forms into an arrow, bleeding into her view but not obscuring it.

She thinks of Ganon. Weak spots that could only be pierced by light. Link—her Link, always her Link—pouring every last breath into Ganon’s defeat, regardless of what awaited him at the end.

There is no sense in being as reckless as he is when she’s only just begun to learn, or remember. But she swears she will pour every last breath into fighting beside him and keeping him more than just alive.

Her arrow strikes dead in the center of her target, as easily as breathing. She grins. “Alternatively, I could just be a natural at this.”

He gives her a bright, impressed smile, one she could never live a life without. She never has, she’s sure. And by her own hand, she never will.

**Author's Note:**

> The lynel is a reference to another work in this series, [The Knight's Dismay](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20275024). Epona looking incorrect is also a reference to another work, [Restlessness](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20498108). If you're interested, check them out! ^^
> 
> * * *
> 
> Want to reblog or retweet? Find [the tumblr post](https://write-nonsense-by-the-ream.tumblr.com/post/188174454128/she-wants-to-comfort-him-to-feel-him-to-soothe) and [the tweet here](https://twitter.com/thirteenthhr/status/1180921546338119680).
> 
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